What gives a piece of music its personality and feeling?

Question

What makes a piece of music sound angry, dark, sad, happy, or otherwise?"La Chute" by Yann Tiersen sounds so angry to me and "A Dark Knight" from "The Dark Knight" movie sounds so dark and mysterious. "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber is a pure expression of sadness, and of course there's no need to even talk about "Adagio of Concierto De Aranjuez". What gives a piece of music its personality?

Answer 1

There is no one factor, but rather a culmination of numerous subtle factors that render a piece it's "personality".

Repetition being an obvious one. What better way to create tension, and anticipation than by pure boring monotony. Play the same note over and over, with the same rhythm and people will beg you to change. When you give them that change there will be a sense of relief in most cases unless..... you introduce some conflict by introducing a "bad note" something that clashes.

We could go on, and on, talking about timbre, amplitude, and a ton of other factors, but I think you get the point. It would help to know specifically what you are aiming for. That would better help a teacher assist you in choosing a direction to focus upon. For instance should you stop everything and master theory, or actually begin music production will depend upon you.

... and I agree Samuel Barber. My mood changed just reading the sentence!

All of my best,

#LoveExcelsAll